Theater Review: In the Daylight

Joseph Urla, Concetta Tomei and Sharon Maguire

on the terrific set of In the Daylight.

A Humorous Journey into Dysfunction
By Lauren Yarger
Add a little dismembering to dysfunction with a sprinkling of laugh-out-loud humor and you get In the Daylight, Tony Glazer’s surprising new play being presented Off-Broadway by Choice Theatricals in association with Vital Theatre Company.

The play is surprising because you can’t help but like it, despite the too-often used dysfunctional family plot and some hokey plot twists. The charm comes from Glazer’s one-line zingers and the creation of a mother-from-hell character that makes Medea almost seem preferable.

The action takes place on Christopher Barreca’s terrifically stark, jagged and sharply angled set that embodies the maladjusted family as well as their descent into an abyss of madness. A single funereal urn on a pedestal down stage left adds the only color to the all-white, hard plastic-like setting.

Famous writer Martin Feingold (Joseph Urla) finally has returned home six years after his father’s death to deal with the ashes and to face his mother, Elizabeth (Concetta Tomei), whom he thinks is dying, and sister, Jessica (Sharon Maguire) who feels he has abandoned her to deal with all of the hard work of looking after their mother and their father’s medical finance business. An added wrinkle is that Martin’s latest best seller, “True Blue,” accused Jessica and Elizabeth, if subtly, of murdering his father William (Jay Patterson), whose spirit still wanders the tormented walls of the house in search of a drink.

Their reunion is less than tender. Jessica and Martin pick up brother-sister bickering right where they left off. Martin complains about having to deal with fans and relates the adoration of an overly zealous groupie whom he sat next to on the plane. Jessica isn’t impressed and starts in on Martin about his excessive drinking (in a nice move from director John Gould Rubin, Martin literally follows in the steps of his alcoholic ghost father).

His welcome home is made complete by Elizabeth who responds to his cheerful greeting with, “I suggest you take that smug look off your face before I wipe it off with my foot.”

When Martin asks what his mother’s plans are for disposing of the ashes, she responds that she’d like to have some French toast first then flush them down the toilet.

Let’s just say that she just gets even less charming after that, until the arrival of an unexpected guest during the hurricane brewing outside (nice light and sound design by Thom Weaver and Elizabeth Rhodes. I particularly liked a shadow effect following the father as he crept up the stairs).

The visitor is Martin’s groupie from the plane, returning his lost Blackberry. The southern drawled, not exactly the brightest bulb in the box (too bad, because the storm forces the power out) Charlotte (Ashley Austin Morris) is invited to stay and dry off, a request that gives sadistic pleasure to Elizabeth and Jessica and torture to Martin as Charlotte reveals information about him from the author's internet fan sites.

Soon, the plot takes a number of twists and nothing and no one is as they seemed. Although the twists are fairly predictable, and even over-the-top when it comes to plausibility, this dark comedy still is enjoyable and Tony Glazer is an author on whom to keep an eye. The best part is, that after viewing the Feingolds in action, you’ll question whether or not you can any longer classify your own family as dysfunctional.

In the Daylight runs through Oct. 11 at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre, 2162 Broadway, 4th floor at 76th St. For tickets phone (212) 579-0528 or visit http://www.vitaltheatre.org/.

Christians might also like to know:
• Language
• Sexually suggestive dialogue
• Violence
• God’s name taken in vain
• Reincarnation discussed

Theater Review: Emily

Christopher Bonewitz and Elizabeth A. Davis

This Drama about Dickinson Never Finds its Beat
By Lauren Yarger
Not much is known for sure about poet Emily Dickinson except that she led a reclusive life in Victorian-era Amherst, Massachusetts, that she might have had a romance, she wore a lot of white dresses and bucked poetic tradition to write rather depressing, oddly structured poems. After viewing Chris Cragin’s Emily: An Amethyst Remembrance being staged by Firebone Theater Off-Broadway on Theater Row, we know little more.

Directed by Steve Day, the drama unfolds backwards in time to explore the life of Emily (Elizabeth A. Davis) and her relationships with those closest to her: brother Austin (Jared Hausman), his wife Sue (Jenny Ledel), sister Lavinia (Misty Foster Venters) and her preceptors Newton and Mr. Williamson (both played by Christopher Bonewitz). All of the actors, except Davis, also play other characters along the way.

The time-tripping plot (which isn’t always clear except for dates and scene titles projected onto the set) never gives us any real insight into Emily, however, except that she was rather self-absorbed and uncaring, apparently. Davis, dressed and coiffed just as the stark, plain image you have in your mind of Dickinson (Victoria Depew, costumes) never develops beyond that. Why does she wear white? Why does she retire to her father’s study and refuse to see people, even Mr. Wilkinson? And why does the family tolerate her behavior (Emily decides to move her bedroom into the study, apparently without caring whether her father will object or whether he might be inconvenienced to be put out of his study)?

Like punctuation or line breaks that can disrupt the structure of a poem, Day’s choice of stark blocks and a large door for set pieces (Rachel Beckerman, scenic and lighting design) disrupts the play by drawing attention to the constant moving of the pieces by the cast members to create a table, or a bed, or a piano. At one point, Emily hoists the cumbersome door out of it’s pipe-fitted fixture (where it actually plays the role of a door in the center of the stage) to move it to its next incarnation causing us to wonder if one of the many mysteries about the poet might have been that she was a secret body builder.

The door doubles as a table, but only sometimes (and doesn't even get to play a door in some scenes, where the actors knock on invisible ones). In one scene, the family gathers around an invisible table. They also chew on invisible hot cross buns. It’s really annoying and at intermission when a member of the stage crew began drilling the box pieces in preparation for their further use in Act 2, I was tempted to offer my services to use a chainsaw to break up that really annoying door.

Most significantly, the use of minimal set fails to highlight Emily’s isolation from the world around her. There is no world around her in this production, so she becomes the main focus and such a close up look isn’t flattering. She’s cold and selfish and rather uninteresting. Rolling on a piano, a Victorian sofa and bed and throwing some real buns on a plate would have made her seem less severe.

Day also fails to coax the best performances out of the actors. A shawl and a pair of glasses hardly changes Ledel from young Sue into Emily’s mother. Bonewitz resorts to a high-pitched clipped accent to distinguish Williamson from Newton.

Interestingly, the scene opening Act 2 gives us a glimpse of what might have been, It’s a comprehensively staged scene in which Austin and Sue marry, followed by their reception. There’s dancing (Kimi Nikaidoh lends some very nice choreography), conversation and a glimpse into these people unencumbered by boxes and doors, and it’s very interesting, but alas, it is too brief.

Cragin offers a nice blend of storytelling and Dickinson’s poems, with excerpts sometimes recited by Emily, sometimes by multiple characters, but the production lacks cohesiveness to be able to convey the tale effectively.

I really enjoyed, however, the title of scene 4: “The Awe Full Door.” Change that to “awful” and there you have it.

Emily plays through Sept. 27 at the Kirk Theater, 410 West 42nd St. For tickets visit http://www.ticketcentral.com/ or by calling 212-279-4200.

Christians might also like to know:
• FIREBONE THEATRE produces and develops works that explore immortality (fire) and mortality (bone). Their first production was the world Premiere of the play Deadheading Roses by resident playwright Chris Cragin at The Lamb’s Little Theatre in Times Square. In 2008 they presented the North American premiere of Refuge of Lies by Ron Reed, at Theatre Row. Recently they produced A Mysterious Way, which was performed in a NYC subway station.
• EMILY was originally workshopped at Pacific Theatre in Vancouver, Canada, (http://www.pacifictheatre.org/.)

Blessed by the Broadway Blessing

Retta Blaney and Lynn Redgrave

Asking Blessings on the Broadway Season
What a lovely service we enjoyed at last night's 13th annual Broadway Blessing at St. John the Divine cathedral in New York. Masterwork Productions, Inc. was one of the sponsors.

The ecumenical celebration of the new theater season featured thoughts from actress Lynn Redgrave, songs by Broadway's Jean Valjean J. Mark McVey, Carol Hall and Patrice Djerejian accompanied by performers from Project Dance. Casey Groves (below left) gave an excerpt from his one-man performance as Father Damian, the Catholic priest who ministered to lepers, and the Broadway Blessing choir performed medleys of show tunes. Bruce Neswick, director of music at the cathedral, played the organ.
Rabbi Jill Hausman of the Actors' Temple, The Rev. Canon Thomas Miller, canon for liturgy and the arts at the cathedral, and The Rev. Mittles DeChamplain of St. Clements Episcopal Church officiated at the service, offering prayers, thoughts and a special candlelighting which Miller said represented the light that shines out from and on those in the Broadway community. Karen Lehman, (left) Executive Director of the Episcopal Actors' Guild, read psalm 98.
McVey (at right with Smith, far right) sang a beautiful song from Christopher Smith's Broadway bound musical Amazing Grace. Redgrave's reflections on surviving breast cancer were very moving. She thanks God for being here for another performance every time she stands in the wings, she said, because God and her faith are an important part of her survival. She concluded with a heartfelt reading of Psalm 23. The event is produced by founder Retta Blaney.
-- Lauren Yarger

At left, Retta Blaney, Karen Lehman and Masterwork Productions Executive Director Lauren Yarger

Larry Gelbart Dies

Tony Award winner Larry Gelbart, a creative force behind the TV series "M*A*S*H," and movies like "Tootsie" and "Oh, God!" has died.

Gelbart won a Tony in 1962 for co-writing the book of the Sondheim musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. For the obituary, click here.

Lynn Redgrave, J. Mark McVey & More Ask God's Blessing on Broadway Season

Lynn Redgrave, J. Mark McVey, Carol Hall (pictured at right), Project Dance, The Broadway Blessing Choir and other distinguished guests will be among the performing artists at this year's celebration to ask God's blessing on the new Broadway Season.

Masterwork Productions, Inc. is a sponsor of this year event on Monday, Sept. 14 at 7:00 pm in the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine.

This year’s event will include theatre reflections by actress Redgrave, Broadway veteran McVey singing “A Chance for Me” from the musical Amazing Grace: The True Story, singer/songwriter Hall performing “My Circle Of Friends” from her award-winning new CD
HALLWAYS: The Songs of Carol Hall and Project Dance, whose director Cheryl Cutlip recently was named one of Masterwork Productions "The Lights Are Bright on Broadway" award recipients.

In its 13th year, Broadway Blessing, an interfaith service, was founded by author and theater critic Retta Blaney, Broadway Blessing was conceived as a service of song and story designed to seek God's grace on the new theatre season.

The Broadway Blessing Choir under the direction of Bruce Neswick, director of music at the cathedral, will perform a number of Broadway hits followed by a “sing-a-long”.

The Very Rev. Dr. James A. Kowalski, dean, and The Rev. Thomas Miller, canon for liturgy & arts, from the Cathedral, will be joined by Rabbi Jill Hausman of Congregation Ezrath Israel / The Actors' Temple and The Rev. Mitties DeChamplain of St. Clement's Episcopal Church as participants in the 75-minute program.

Past participants have included Marian Seldes, Marcia Gay Harden, Frances Sternhagen, Boyd Gaines, Edward Herrmann, Anna Manahan, KT Sullivan, Mary-Mitchell Campbell, Tituss Burgess, Kathleen Chalfant, Billy Porter, Elizabeth Swados, Ken Prymus, Three Mo’ Tenors and Broadway Inspirational Voices.

Mr. Herrmann had this to say about it before making his second Broadway Blessing appearance: “It’s reassuring to know there are so many people out there you know that believe in God and want to take that part of their life and dedicate it to the theatre because theatre is a very spiritual endeavor. They come from every conceivable denomination, which I kind of like. It’s like a study in architecture of all these different buildings. They come from all kinds of disciplines and it’s just great to be among them. It’s an annual event, like with spring comes the first buds, now it’s fall and we’re here to bless our endeavors for the rest of the year and maybe some luck will come out of it, whether that’s internal or external.”

Broadway Blessing is free and open to people of all ages; reservations are not needed. For more information please visit http://www.stjohndivine.org/.

Broadway Blessing is made possible by the generous support of Masterwork Productions Inc., The Church of the Transfiguration (The Little Church Around the Corner), Creative Gifts Foundation, Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) and other wonderful friends of the theater.

Cirque du Soleil 'Unpeels' a New Show: Banana Shpeel

A New Twist on Vaudeville

Cirque du Soleil and MSG Entertainment have announced a new theatrical production, Banana Shpeel, to premiere at The Beacon Theatre (2124 Broadway, New York) on Feb. 11, 2010, with preview performances starting on Feb. 4, 2010.

Banana Shpeel is a roller-coaster mix of comedy, tap, hip hop, eccentric dance and slapstick, all linked by a narrative that ignites a succession of wacky adventures. This is not circus, or a musical or a variety show, or even vaudeville. It is Banana Shpeel!

Propelled by crazy humor and intense choreography, Banana Shpeel plunges us into the world of Schmelky, a cruel and irritable producer who dangles fame and fortune in front of Emmett, an innocent and romantic actor who has come to audition for him. Emmett soon finds himself trapped in a flamboyant, anarchic world where Schmelky sows terror and reigns supreme. Emmett falls in love with the beautiful Katie and meets a bunch of absurd characters, including the strange Banana Man. But who is this mysterious Banana Man and how can Emmett escape the clutches of Schmelky and his henchmen?

Banana Shpeel writer and director David Shiner started out as a mime in Paris. His career took off in 1984 when he was discovered at the renowned circus festival Cirque de Demain. Shiner later teamed up with Bill Irwin to create the wordless two-man show Fool Moon, which played from 1992 to 1999, including three Broadway runs. Fool Moon picked up numerous prizes, including a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award. In 2007, Shiner directed his first Cirque du Soleil production, the big top touring show KOOZA.

Cirque du Soleil celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2009. From a group of 20 street performers at its beginnings in 1984, Cirque du Soleil is now a major Quebec-based organization providing high-quality artistic entertainment. The company has more than 4,000 employees from over 40 different countries, including 1,000 performing artists.

Tickets are available exclusively to Cirque Club Members and MSG Insiders until Oct. 7, when tickets will be available to th general public. Tickets range from $45 to $120 with a limited number of premium tickets available for all performances. For more information, visit http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/ or http://www.beacontheatre.com/.

Best of the NY Fringe Festival

By Lauren Yarger
Mix together more than 200 shows in 18 venues over three weeks and you have the New York International Fringe Festival.

Of the total package, I reviewed 24 shows and awarded fringe “tassels” from 1 to 5 based on overall quality of the production. Following is a wrap-up of the top five I saw. You’ll be seeing these shows or hearing from these playwrights again. They’re that good.

Check here to see which shows have been selected to play encores in September. To read reviews with an added Christian perspective of all 24 shows I saw, go to http://reflectionsinthelight.blogspot.com/, scroll down on the left side of the page and click on “NY Fringe Festival 2009 Reviews.”

Memoirs Wrapped in Love and Forgiveness

Show: White Horses: An Irish Childhood
Presented by: Breaking Tide
Writer: Owen Dara
Director: Elizabeth Duck & Dan Toscano
Fringe Tassels Awarded: 4.5 of 5

Summary:
A sweet, sad and inspiring memoir of growing up in Ireland. Owen Dara uses humor, song and love to paint a picture of his boyhood in Cork, Ireland with a devout Catholic mother and a father who battles depression.
Dara spends content and happy younger years watching his father create pottery which he sells to tourists to support the family. He thrills his mother when he announces plans to enter the priesthood. All these dreams are shattered by a fallible priest and by his father loss of the pottery business and descent into depression which forces the family to live in poverty, first in rented accommodations, then in a run down home given to them by his wealthy maternal grandfather.

As a teen, Dara rebels against the upper-class snobbery of his mother’s family and drops out of school. Years of travelling can’t put distance between him and the anger he feels for his father, and it’s only when, fighting his own depression, he returns to express his feelings to his father, that he finds peace through forgiveness.

Dara is a wonderful storyteller, playing the various roles of his parents, a school mate, the priest and himself. He draws the audience in and touches them deeply with the tales. It’s very encouraging to see an author’s view of family dysfunction filtered by love, rather than by the anger and pain it causes. The show is derived from Dara’s book of memoires “White Horses: An Irish Childhood.” The white horses refer to a story his father told him about herds of white horses forming the white caps on ocean waves.

Highlights:
• Just the right blend of humor to balance the sadder parts
• The song he writes for his dad
• Would love to see an Off-Broadway run with a song added at the beginning and a book signing following

Lowlights:
• None

Christians might also like to know:
• Lord’s name taken in vain

Juggling Love, Careers and Womanhood

Show: And She Said, He Said, I Said Yes
Presented by: DRD Productions
Writer: Harrison David Rivers
Fringe Tassels Awarded: 4.5 of 5

Summary:
A really compelling triplet of monologues by Melissa Joyner, Rory Lipede and Jehan O. Young who discuss trying to balance careers, finding their identities as women and negotiating romantic relationships that often try to interfere with both.

Young grows her hair long in what she discovers is an attempt to keep a guy; Joyner must give up a relationship when he wants her to forgo an acting career in New York to be a good wife in Memphis; and Lipede finds herself the cruel victim of a bet by the popular guy on campus.

Highlights:
• The three women are great. They’re honest, funny and inspiring and make you think they’d be a lot of fun to hang out with.
• Their dialogue, written by Harrison David Rivers and using much of theowmen's own stories, is engrossing and pulls you in and keeps you engaged throughout the 90-minute presentation. It's upbeat and definitely not a "man bash."

Lowlights:
•None. Take it Off-Broadway.

Christians might also like to know:
• Sex outside of marriage and date rape is included in the dialogue
• Language

The Most Fun You'll Have in Church Out of Church

Show: Sunday Best
Presented by: Azddak Performances Writer: Laura Canty-Samuel
Composer: Laura Canty-Samuel and Ethan Forrest Wagner
Fringe Tassels Awarded: 4 out of 5

Summary: Have you ever wanted to laugh in church? Here’s your chance, and you might actually spend time praising God too. It’s the well-done Sunday Best featuring the talents of author Laura Canty-Samuel who plays 10 characters taking part in a Sunday service at the fictional Mount Carmel Church and their corresponding wide range of idiosyncrasies and emotions.

She’s backed up by the church choir (Xavier Rice, Kimberly Crane and Fola Azali Vann) and musical director and co-composer Ethan Wagner and his praise band (Anthony Richardson, Darrell Ward and Mike Tucker).

The show (amusingly listed as an order of worship in the program) features toe-tapping, hand-clapping gospel music with some thoughts, prayers and sermons from the characters in between. Among the characters are Mother Lucy, a grandmotherly type, Evangelist Reese who shares a word from God, Sister Marisol who isn’t happy about her husband’s call to the ministry, Sister Eunice who is frustrated in her attempts to give testimony by the choir which keeps adding refrains to its song, Minister Roland with a rapping sermon about being a soldier, a 4-year-old Sister Denay and Sister LaShonda who balks at directives about what women should wear in church, like a ban on open-toe shoes.

“What’s a toe going to do?” she questions.

Canty-Samuel makes lightning-fast, full costume changes for each of the characters, including wigs and hats. She adds some humorous prayers for health care and Glenn Beck, some interaction with the audience and lots of great music (there’s a nice selection of sound styles) to offer one of the most-fun filled church services around. In all seriousness, the selection of songs leading into the monologues seemed better thought out than the praise songs leading into sermons I’ve experienced at some church services.

Highlights:
• “Ride on King Jesus” with terrific harmonies by the choir and a stand-out tenor solo by Rice
• “I’m a Soldier” with Minister Roland dividing the audience into two parts to sing “I’m a soldier, I’ma. I’ma soldier” and the responding “What?!” And they did it with unfeigned enthusiasm.
• With lyrics like “Jesus Christ has got your back; ain’t it nice to have a savior like that?” what’s not to like? I love when theater honors God.

Lowlights:
• It goes a bit too long (like some church services, dare I say?) at an hour and 30 minutes with no intermission. Some trimming, particularly of two songs focusing more on relationships between the characters and of the prolonged ending would form a tighter production.

Christians might also like to know:
• Booking information at azddak@gmail.com


Strangers on a Train Find They Have a Lot in Common

Show: Damon and Debra
Presented by: B Train Productions
Writer: Judy Chicurel
Director: Passion Hansome
Fringe Tassels Awarded: 4 out of 5

Summary:
Playwright Judy Chicurel has hit one out of the park at her first New York theater at bat with a fascinating interaction between two commuters stranded together on a subway train.

Damon (Julito McCullum) and Debra (Michelle H. Zanagara) find themselves stranded on a NY Subway B train shortly after the September 11 attacks and enter into a forced conversation as they wait for service to resume. What starts as two people apparently on different ends of the spectrum becomes a fascinating conversation between two people who have more in common than you’d think. He’s a young African American, a distrustful product of the foster care system who works as an orderly at a hospital and who carries a notebook to write down new vocabulary words; she’s a multiple-degreed bureaucrat, who’s feisty and bold – she breaks out a bottle of wine and a joint while waiting for the train to run -- who carries purchases from a high-end-store shopping trip.

Anything you’ve ever heard or thought about racism comes out at some point, often with good humor attached. This script contains some of the most raw, honest, funny and razor-sharp dialogue I have heard in a while. After finding common ground, they end up revealing some of their inner struggles. Debra, it turns out, just found out she has breast cancer, to which she just lost her mother. Damon dreams of living in peace in a house outside of the city where no one can find him (like they always could when he was in foster care). The exchange is natural and not forced as in so many “two-strangers-meet” plots and these two characters are extremely likable, thanks to the actors.

Highlights:
• Crisp realistic dialogue

Lowlights:
• It’s unlikely a B train would have only two people in a car at 3 pm (more plausible at 3 am). It’s also unlikely that so close to the attack on the WTC, these two would be so laid back and unconcerned about why the train was stopped. They do attempt to open the doors that exit onto the platform early on, but it never occurs to them to pass between train cars to find a conductor or other passengers?

Christians might also like to know:
• Lord’s name taken in vain
• Language
• Drug usage

Lessons Learned Following U2

Photo by Deborah Alexander

Show: I Will Follow
Presented by: Pennyfield Productions
Writer: Barri Tsavaris
Director: Steve Wargo
Fringe Tassels Awarded: 3.5 of 5

Summary:
Barri Tsavaris loves Bono and the band U2. No, she uber loves them. No, you don’t get it. She LOVES them, so much so that she camps out on the cold street overnight for a chance of seeing them at a television appearance, plans her wedding around their tour dates, spends rent money on concert tickets and risks losing her job to attend a taping.

She shares her escapades, which start in 1987 as she is preparing for her bat mitzvah, assisted by John Keabler and Melissa Center who play the various acquaintances, friends, family members and U2 fans along the way. She finally meets her idol then has to ask, “what now?”

It’s really a lot of fun, and it’s hard not to immensely like the effervescent Barri, who’s not afraid to laugh at herself and learn a few lessons on her life's road trip. Keabler and Center are very entertaining as well and excel as the groundskeeper at Bono’s Ireland home and an Italian groupie, respectively.

Highlights:
• Nice set by R. Allen Babcock
• Barri’s thoughtful reflections on being in the financial district on September 11, 2001 and her thought about being grateful for a bed after sleeping on the street.

Lowlights:
• None

Christians might also like to know:
• God’s name taken in vain
• Barri doesn’t believe God is real, but does talk to Bono God, who answers her.
• Horoscope